Lead Developer - Mobile Apps
Location: GB, CMD, London
Department: Technology
Salary range: 55000-65000
Employment type: Full-time
Required experience: Mid-Senior level
Required education: Bachelor's Degree
Industry: Marketing and Advertising
Function: Engineering

Company profile:
The Technical Team and offering at VML London has a very strong heritage dating back to the mid-nineties when the London office was founded. Back in those days we were one of the first few purely digital marketing agencies in London; and back then things were a lot more technically driven than they often are today; as such the Technology team here continues to enjoy a strong strategic influence on the work that the agency undertakes and the clients that we engage.It just works.Technology is brilliant when you don’t have to think about it. That’s what we strive for in our solutions. Our technology team has a strong strategic influence on the work we undertake and are involved as soon as the brief lands. They stay involved throughout strategy, creative concepting and design. Acting as important enablers, we bring new and emerging technology to the table to successfully marry the requirements of our clients with the vision of our creatives.Open standards, open minds.We aim to deliver the most elegant technical solution for your budget, and maintain a technology agnostic approach to development in order to achieve that. Technology can be expensive, both in terms of hard costs and costly mistakes, so we’re as careful with your money as we are with our own.   Perhaps that’s why some of our clients have been with us for over 10 years. When faced with a new problem our first instinct is always to see if someone else has already solved it. As such, the solutions we design are built on the rich eco-system of open source software (OSS); the proven and battle-tested kind that we know will not just do the job quickly and cost-effectively, but also robustly. Where OSS isn't appropriate we always favour solutions that are built to open standards that we know will integrate well with other technologies.Strong partnerships.Our work is complemented by strong partnerships with technology vendors and suppliers.   Proven over time, our established strategic relationships with many of the leaders in software, hardware and other technology solutions help ensure we’re able to continue to offer best-in-class technical solutions for our clients.What we do:High availability and high performance website architecture &amp; developmentWeb content management solutionsCreative technology ideationContent optimisation, search and analyticsHigh volume, multi-locale email campaignsMobile optimisationLocalisation

Job description:
Engaging mobile native applications are part of a well rounded digital customer experience, both complementing other online channels with unique experiences only native apps can offer, and extending the reach to users who prefer mobile engagement.As such, VML builds native mobile applications usually driven by backend content management systems, using native application runtimes (Cocoa Touch, Android Java) to make the best possible user experience. VML offers software development services from all its primary locations, and the London team is the next team to build out a mobile apps development capability. This role is a key leading role in the creation of that team, under Technical Director Tim Ocock who has been responsible for some of the most successful mobile apps including Skype, Domino's Pizza, Carling iPint, #URL_61fdec9c797dafae0fc11ca77afce9296ec675c1ac3e04bba3f66d85a072bb47# and enterprise solutions for brands such as Audi and Burberry.VML applies the same rigorous quality software engineering and architectural approach to client side code, whether apps or websites, as we do to our enterprise server applications. As such VML is looking for an engineer and architect who favours disciplined development and testing practices to the more trial and error approach that is often applied to campaign related digital marketing work. The software we build runs business critical systems with high performance, high availability requirements for some of the UK’s leading brands, taking millions of pounds per day in sales and being design to cope with tens of thousands of page impressions per second.The successful applicant will have a minimum of 5 years of experience with a range of apps developments technologies on both iOS and Android platforms and ideally exposure to server side technologies as well. They will be confident at leading groups of developers to a successful project conclusion.

Requirements:
Required Knowledge and skills:Delivery of connected native mobile apps developed using Objective C and Android JavaBuilding novel user interfaces using native applicationSoftware design and architecture using recognized patterns and object oriented designHybrid application development using PhonegapAccessibility and Usability issues relating to mobile app developmentCode control using Git or SubversionExperience building clients to RESTful web services and working with JSON dataAPI design of web services optimised for mobile accessPerformance and memory usage optimisation Debugging and automated testing of native mobile appsManagement of the native application deployment process and management of App Store/Google Play listingsIntegration of in-app analytics solutions for fine grained event trackingTesting and defect management using Jira or similarExcellent customer facing communications, presentation and documentation skillsUseful extra knowledge and skills:Server side languages such as PHP or JavaMobile application development for Windows Phone or BlackBerry 10Best practices for Integration Management, Release Management, Configuration Management, Estimation and other software engineering processesAgile software development using Scrum and similar, and tools such as Jira AgileLine management and coaching of junior members of staff 

Benefits: